News & Commentary

June 6, 2014, will go down in Wisconsin history as the day when county clerks first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the Badger State. It was on June 6 that federal Judge Barbara Crabb declared that Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional in a case brought before her by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of eight Wisconsin lesbian and gay couples. The ban, the judge declared, violated the plaintiffs' fundamental right to marry and their right to equal protection of laws under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite Crabb's stay of her subsequent June 13 order and the obstinate resistance of Gov. Scott Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, on June 6 our state joined the r

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union in Wisconsin are looking at whether to file lawsuits on behalf of same-sex couples who got married after a federal judge struck down the state's ban on gay marriages.

  Bill Hurtubise and Dean Palmer, Wisconsin Bill Hurtubise and Dean Palmer of Racine want the security marriage will provide in allowing them both to be adoptive

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the Elmbrook School District, leaving in place a federal appeals court decision that said holding public high school graduations in a church was unconstitutional for violating the separation of church and state. In 2012, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the Elmbrook School District for holding graduation ceremonies inside Elmbrook Church in Brookfield. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the suit in 2009 on behalf of nine st

By Shereen Siewert, Gannett Wisconsin

By Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER

In 2006, Wisconsin Referendum 1 passed, and became Article XIII, Section 13 of the state constitution.  It banned same-sex marriage, saying “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”

MADISON, Wis. — A federal judge on Friday put same-sex marriages in Wisconsin on hold, a week after she struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional, a move that allowed more than 500 couples to wed over the last eight days. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb’s ruling Friday means that gay marriages will end while the appeal from Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hol